Dastur International and its affiliate companies Dastur Energy and M.N. Dastur & Co have been awarded by the US Department of Energy to design and engineer the first industrial-scale carbon capture plant for an integrated steel producer in the US.
The carbon capture project will take away 2 million tons of CO2 per year from the blast furnace gases coming from the production of steel. Dastur will receive the award but will be supported by Boulder, ION Clean Energy and the University of Texas at Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences.
The Steel Carbon Capture Plant Benefits And Opportunities
Apart from reducing the emissions of the steel industry, the project also aims to design a cost-effective solution for the capture and disposition of CO2. Dastur’s approach targets to bring down the cost from the current $60-100 per ton of CO2 captured and disposed of, to $40 per ton.
The project will also provide a hydrogen-rich gas stream for meeting the energy needs of the host steel plant. Dastur hopes that the project will serve as a reference design for other clients in the steel-making and heavy manufacturing sector. According to the company, it could be a solution for companies looking for effective decarbonization processes that minimize the “carbon premium”.
“This is the first and a very important carbon capture project at an integrated steel plant in the United States. With the Department of Energy’s support and with Dastur’s expertise in the design of commercial-scale engineering systems for carbon capture, this project can provide a competitive path for decarbonization of the US steel industry,” according to Peter Marcus, Founder and Managing Partner at World Steel Dynamics – a strategic advisor in the steel sector.
With this project, Dastur like other carbon capture companies has the opportunity to utilize its know-how in gas conditioning, system design & engineering, steel sector expertise, carbon capture technology, and sequestration.
If a successful and cost-effective carbon capture solution for the heavy manufacturing sector becomes scalable, that would provide enormous benefits for other major steel-producing geographies like China, Japan, South Korea, and India. Steel capacities there, are largely blast furnace-based.
